QUESTIONS UNANSWERED. 399 



yond the faculties of those whom he wishes to test and put to 

 the proof, the master will not fail to furnish them with all the 

 elements necessary for their guidance, whether they consider 

 it from without, or whether they consider it with the help of 

 their own inner consciousness. 



But science and conscience stand in need of an equally 

 difficult task ; the first, that it may learn to observe clearly, the 

 latter that it may learn to act purely. And it is here, above all, 

 that the two-fold nature of man becomes a perplexity and a 

 stumbling-block. On the one hand, man creates theories, in 

 order to disembarrass himself of the science which calls for the 

 exercise of powerful and laborious observation ; on the other, 

 he creates dogmas, which he hopes may lull to sleep that ever 

 active, ever restless conscience, which demands fertile and 

 beneficial actions, and rejects barren or deceitful phrases. 



It is true that to many minds the discussion of the questions 

 at which we have hinted seems a sorry work, because the time 

 given for their discussion is necessarily so limited. What is 

 life ? they say. What can be effected in so short an interval ? 

 What can man hope to accomplish in the few short years that 

 intervene between manhood, when the mind is mature, and 

 old age, when the intellect grows enfeebled ? These are the 

 men who echo the old poet's mournful cry : * 



" A good that never satisfies the mind, 

 A beauty fading like the April flowers, 

 A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, 

 A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, 



* William Drummond. 



